Elizabeth Holmes Embraces Her Controversy

Elizabeth Holmes, the 31-year-old founder and C.E.O. of Theranos, the blood-testing start-up recently valued at $9 billion, has watched her privately held company endure a rare form of public flogging. In October, The Wall Street Journal issued a blistering report that alleged the company’s core technology was so faulty that it often relied on other generic machines to run its tests. In a blink, Holmes went from being upheld as a shining embodiment of Silicon Valley’s limitless optimism to an avatar of a growing belief that we are in a soon-to-implode tech bubble. This morning, the Journal reported that U.S. health regulators are launching investigations into the company over accuracy and research protocol. Theranos’s future now seems to depend on whether the F.D.A. will approve its equipment and some 120 tests. (According to a Theranos spokesperson, the F.D.A. is not requiring the company’s tests and technologies to go through the regulatory process. The company is cooperating willingly.)